DAY BY DAY

DAY BY DAY

Deuteronomy 8:1-20; Matthew 6:5-15 (v.11)

Dr. Wm. J. Maxwell

First Presbyterian Church, Newport, RI

September 23, 2007

As we continue looking at the Lord’s Prayer as a model prayer and an instructive prayer for us, we come to a brief petition of only seven words, and yet a petition full of meaning and pertinent application for our own prayers. It is the petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

One of the challenges a minister of the Word has in preaching involves knowing what to say in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes, a pastor can say more in a 20-minute message than can actually be said in a 60-minute message. Another way of saying this is that sometimes “more is less and less is more.” Now, don’t get the idea that the best preachers preach only five minutes! But on many an occasion, more can be said in fewer words and this petition is but an example of this. The petition, “Give us this day our daily bread” has a number of relevant points in instructing us in how to pray our own prayers.

WE CAN PRAY BELIEVING

THAT GOD CARES FOR US

and WANTS TO MEET OUR NEEDS.

Prayer is meaningless if we turn to a God in prayer who only refuses to turn to us in gracious response. But this is hardly the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You may recall that Jesus teaches the nature of God’s disposition toward us in this very same chapter further on in the Sermon on the Mount. We have reason to worry if the demands and challenges of life and the incessant needs of our existence are all up to us. But in a loving rebuke, our Lord teaches us not to worry:

“Why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or “What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”[i]

If this is the disposition of our heavenly Father towards us, then the worry that so captivates and controls us betrays in us a lack of faith in the character of our heavenly Father. At the very moment when a care arises at the doorstep of our lives, that’s when we need to pray; because if we don’t and we open that door, we will find that that particular concern has many companions.

For this very reason, in a sermon, “Prayer, the Cure for Care,” C.H. Spurgeon gives us this sage and wise advice:

“I suppose it is true for many of us that our cares are manifold. If you are like me, once you become careful, anxious, fretful, you are never able to count your cares, even though you might count the hairs of your head. Cares multiply for those who are care-full. When you are as full of care as you think you can be, you will be sure to find another crop full of cares growing up all around you. The indulgence of this habit of anxiety leads to its getting dominion over life till life is not worth living by reason of the care we have about it. Cares and worries are manifold; therefore let your prayers be manifold. Turn everything that is a care into a prayer. Let your cares be the raw material of your prayers. As the alchemist hoped to turn dross into gold, you have the power to actually turn what naturally would have been a care into a spiritual treasure in the form of prayer. Baptize every anxiety into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and so make it into a blessing.” [ii]

How true this is, that we can make our cares into blessings, as we present “this day” … daily … day by day, even moment by moment, our cares and concerns into the hands of our heavenly Father.

WE CAN and SHOULD OFTEN PRAY WITH OTHERS.

When we look at the Lord’s Prayer, it is not difficult to find the communal side to it. The prayer begins with “Our Father” and the word “our” is recurrent. Whenever we pray, we ought to have in remembrance the worship, loyalty, submission, and the needs of the Body of Christ. There is not one member, but many members found in the Body of Christ.

We can also pray in community as we take and pray the word “our” literally. We can’t obviously meet every day for worship together as the church. But there are certainly occasions when two or three can gather together in Christ’s name.[iii] There are even more occasions available for prayer when family members can gather together to pray. There are far too many societal assaults made today on the family that necessitate husbands and wives praying together, parents and children praying together, and grandparents and grandchildren praying together.

One well-known pastor made the following remark, lamenting over the breakdown of the family: “Nowadays one (i.e. a pastor) has more to do with marriage than with all other matters. Because of them we can hardly read, preach, or study. I have observed many married couples coming together in such great passion that they were ready to devour each other for love, but after a half year the one ran away from the other. I have known people who have become hostile to each other after they had five or six children and were bound to each other not merely by marriage but also by the fruits of their union. Yet they left each other.” [iv]

But wait a minute – don’t believe for a minute that this is a quote from a contemporary pastor. This is a quote from the pastor, Martin Luther! You see, marriage and the family have ever and always been under attack. From the Evil One’s first attempts to divide Adam and Eve, he has never ceased seeking to divide and conquer marriage and the family. Marriage and the family have been part of God’s plan from the beginning, and from the beginning Satan has hated it. Marriage and the family have been intended to bring forth, if possible, godly offspring, and Satan hates that. Marriage in Scripture has also been seen as analogous to the Church’s relationship with Christ, as the Bride to the Bridegroom. And Satan hates that even more!

So, if marriages and families are ever to survive the assaults of the Adversary, society, and the inclinations of our own sinful nature, then prayer time in marriages and families must be more than a simple “Thank you” at mealtime! Yes, it takes effort to make the time to pray together, but the blessings from a Father to whom we can take every care are most certainly worth it! And those blessings include the depth of our family relationships increasing as we do.

III

WE CAN OBVIOUSLY PRAY

FOR OUR PHYSICAL NEEDS.

In asking for “our daily bread,” we are requesting the meeting of our needs. Bread is the “staple of life” and as such life is sustained by it. In a literal way, we see this happening with the provision of food to the Hebrews in the desert. The LORD provided for His people in so many ways, with Manna from heaven, quail, and with clothes that never wore out.

In a literal way, we also see this happening in Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. We are told that Jesus took five small barley loaves and two fish given to Him by a boy. “Jesus said, ‘Have the people sit down.’ There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about 5,000 of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, He said to His disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.’ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.” [v] Now, if the LORD can do this for His people in the wilderness and then for the 1,000’s of men, women and children gathered before Jesus on a hillside, He can surely sustain us in our time of need!

One of the more inspiring examples and witnesses of the Lord’s provision through prayer is George Mueller, who provided for thousands of orphaned children in the 1800’s, and all by making his requests to God in prayer. But I came across another this week, regarding the work of George Washington Carver. Carver is remembered as a famous scientist from the Tuskegee Institute. But few are aware of the fact that he was also a Christian and a man of prayer.

According to his own witness, Carver began each day in the lab with a prayer: “Dear Mr. Creator, what do You want to show me today?” Initially, Carver had difficulty being very specific. He would pray: “Dear Mr. Creator, what was the universe made for?” But then the Lord spoke to him and told Carver that he needed to get more detailed in prayer. So Carver prayed, “Mr. Creator, what was man created for?” The Lord spoke to him and told him that he was still asking too much and not enough in detail. That’s when Carver became quite specific and prayed: “Dear Mr. Creator, what was the peanut created for?” In time, God set in motion a number of answers to that prayer, and over 200 different commercial uses were discovered – including peanut butter.[vi]

In the meeting of our needs, God most certainly can even be in the production, as well as in the provision. And prayer is so often the key!

BUT WE CAN ALSO PRAY

FOR OUR SPIRITUAL NEEDS.

When we think of bread, we naturally think of our physical needs being sustained. But the Bible often surprises us by using the physical to address the spiritual. Think, as an example, of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness by the devil over the issue of hunger and food. We are told in Matthew: “After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, ‘If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” [vii]

Jesus was quoting from our Old Testament lesson for this morning, referring to Moses’ admonition to the Israelites. The LORD had faithfully preserved them with the bread from heaven – Manna. But just as important is the spiritual food, the Word that came from the Lord Himself, and in yet another sense, is the Lord Himself as the Bread of Life.[viii] So, we need to remember in prayer that our spiritual feeding is just as important as is the physical.

During a time of great spiritual revival in the Church in America and in England in the early 18^th century, the Holy Spirit was also using the ministry of Howell Harris in Wales. A young medical student heard Harris preach, and William Williams was never the same. Williams became a Christian and then entered the ministry in Wales, in time traveling nearly 100,000 miles in itinerant service for the Master.

In traveling all those miles on horseback, he preached and he sang the Gospel. Though life was very hard at times, Williams was known appreciatively as the “sweet singer of Wales.” He wrote over 800 Welsh hymns, but we only have one that has been translated. Nevertheless, we know it very well:

“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,

Pilgrim through this barren land;

I am weak, but Thou art mighty –

Hold me with Thy pow’rful hand:

Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,

Feed me till I want no more,

Feed me till I want no more.” [ix]

A great hymn … and a great prayer, that Christ – the Bread of Life – would feed and sustain Williams to the point, if possible, that he could want no more. And could this not be our prayer, as well? Could we not make this our earnest request as well?

“This, then, is how you should pray:

‘Give us this day our daily bread.’”